By Senabri Silvestre

SANTO DOMINGO, Dom. Rep.

Dominican health care workers on Wednesday formed a human chain at state-run hospitals to demand better working conditions and salaries.

A sizeable portion of the country’s 16,000 health employees, who provide services at approximately 150 state-run medical centers, joined hands during the two-hour protest that was marked by prayers, songs and slogans related to demands.

Organizers would not provide the actual number of workers who participated in the demonstrations.

Some patients even joined the chain.

One demonstrator painted a dire picture of conditions at some hospitals, pointing to lack of basic supplies and medicine at some locations.

“We are doing this activity for the people to see that we are not taking actions to affect the sick but so that they [relatives] would not have to carry sheets to wrap their loved ones, or that they would have to go to private hospitals or medical schools [to receive service]”, said Rafaelina Figuereo, general secretary of the National Nurses Union.

“Hospitals are cemeteries of living men” and doctors cannot be accomplices to it, she told Anadolu Agency.

The Dominican Medical Association (CDM) and health employees have conducted sporadic strikes, marches and other job actions during the past year but demands have largely fallen on dead ears.

They demand a 60 percent salary increase for doctors and an investment in the health care sector at 5 percent of the GDP, among other claims.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, CMD chief Waldo Ariel Suero said he regrets that Health Minister Altagracia Guzman Marcelino wants to talk only when there is a strike. “We will continue fighting until our demands are heard”, Suero said.

The government has not issued a response to the latest protest.

A march is scheduled Thursday at the headquarters of the health ministry.